Photo Archivist's Selection of the Month: October
2002

The Hurricane of '38 and the
Floods of '54 and '55

The Great New England Hurricane of September 1938 lives in history
as the worst disaster for Connecticut in the 20th century. Not only was it
a major storm producing more than 100 mph winds, but it caused enormous flooding.
Prior rains on September 12 and 15 had raised the water levels, and a storm
raging September 17 through 20 added another 6 inches or more of rainfall.
Thus, when the hurricane hit on September 21, the water from the rains had
nowhere to go. Add to that the fact that there was no effective hurricane
warning system in place at the time, the combination of storm, floods, and
the lack of preparedness, was devastating.

Then there was Hurricane
Carol, August 31, 1954. Though a Category III storm, it was the most destructive
hurricane to strike Southern New England since the Hurricane of 1938; on September
11, Stamford barely escaped another one: Hurricane
Edna moved up the coast just to the east of Carol's path and made landfall
in Cape Cod, moving on into Maine and Southeastern Canada.

In the following year the region
was hit by two storms within less than two weeks: The
Floods of Hurricane Connie and Diane. Connie brought up to 6 inches
of rainfall on August 11 and 12, 1955 and saturated the ground. River
and reservoir
levels rose well above normal levels. A week later, Diane pummeled the region
for two days with rainfall up to 20 inches. Again, the Dodd Research
Center
has a story too, The
Flood of 1955.

Researching the events on microfilm of the Stamford
Advocate, in the Ferguson Library,
was very interesting! The storms do not seem to have affected publishing the
paper at all. And the day of the storm in '38 was also a very important day
in history: Chamberlain negotiating with Hitler about Czechoslovakia! Different
from today's way of reporting, each day had basically one huge article instead
of breaking the story down. The devastations in the state and in New York
got separate and extensive coverage also.

The floods brought amateur photographers out in droves,
it seems: Nothing is more interesting than a good disaster! The Stamford Historical
Society's Photo Archive has a nice selection of photos and snapshots as a
result.